Position (displacement) transducers that communicate electrical signals indicating the position or displacement of a moving part, such as an automotive vehicle accelerator pedal or an engine inlet air valve are known. It is further known that redundant position indications output by multiple matched position transducers can be analyzed to improve position sensing robustness. It is still further known that a combination of at least three redundant position indications provided from at least three substantially independent position transducers may be used to improve position sensing robustness by not only determining when a position transducer is providing an inaccurate position indication, but by determining which transducer is providing the inaccurate position indication. If a majority of the at least three sensors indicate substantially the same position, any other sensors not in agreement will be assumed to be faulty and will be excluded, at least temporarily, from further use. The position indicated by the majority of sensors may then be combined or a single position indication from the majority used as a representation of the position of the measured part.
Part to part variations among position transducers of reasonable cost and among typical automotive electronics components dictate that some disagreement between position indications of the plurality of processed transducers values be tolerated. Marginal transducer performance is therefore forgiven and can be reduce the accuracy of the position representation. Even minor inaccuracies can perceptibly perturb automotive vehicle performance. Until the marginal transducer performance rises to a level no longer tolerated in such conventional approaches, such inaccuracies will persist.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for redundant position or displacement sensing without tolerating marginal transducer performance while avoiding the cost associated with high precision position transducers and electronic components.